While it certainly sounds as though the "movement" conservatives are mighty upset about the election of Barack Hussein Obama, I think I detect a certain amount of relief in their hysterical shriekings. Come on, wingers, admit it - didn't the Bush years just feel a little bit wrong to you? Wasn't it odd to be complaining about the nefarious liberals plotting all manner of secular humanist skullduggery when liberals, by and large, had no actual political power? With a virtual lock on all three branches of government, didn't it feel strange to say we liberals were going to tear down everything you hold dear? Wasn't there a little voice in the back of your head - kind of like the one guy at Lehman Brothers who might have timidly suggested that staking the company's future on debts no one else wanted wasn't a great idea - that said, "Um, aren't we winning?" Sure, the '06 midterms relieved some of that cognitive dissonance a bit and at least furnished you with Nancy Pelosi to kick around, but it wasn't quite enough was it? Considering that your entire worldview is based on you being a persecuted minority, doesn't it feel good to have been kicked to the ideological curb? Doesn't it feel - like home?

Now, I realize home is a touchy subject for you these days, considering that many of you are fantasizing about seceding from the United States rather than follow President Obama. I'd prefer you didn't secede; I know a lot of very nice people who live in red states and I'd rather they not be there when your fledgling nation inevitably degrades into an atavistic shitstorm that makes Lord of the Flies look like a Jane Austen novel.

Besides, seceding would be an even better trick than impeaching a president who hasn't been sworn in yet, considering the amount of territory you can consider "yours." Take a look at this graphic from the New York Times that shows which areas of the country are trending Democratic vs. those that are trending Republican (click to enlarge):

Looks to me like "your" territory is disappearing faster than that of the Himalayan snow leopard. If you guys think you can forge a nation out of that little squiggle above the Gulf States that looks like the blotch on Gorbachev's head, well, be my guest.

With secession unlikely, I suppose you could consider emigration, but if even the United States is too left-wing for you these days I have no idea where you can go. Uzbekistan?

Perhaps there is still some untamed wilderness left in the world you could claim as your own. By doing so, you'd be upholding a fine American tradition: remember, the first Puritans who came to Massachusetts did so because Restoration England just wasn't weird enough for them.

Or you could, you know, stay. A few years in the political wilderness might be good for the soul, and help you scrape off some your party's dead bark. And who knows? If things start working here in America again, you might actually decide you can live here after all.